Hello everybody,

Here's a network link for Google Earth which will use Google Maps to give you a transparent map overlay for the area you are viewing in Google Earth. This is a rather pointless exercise for most parts of the world where the information content in both services is about the same, but for Japan Google Maps provides a lot of additional information.

When I was entering placemarks for my recent holiday in Japan I noticed that Google Earth resolution (outside Tokyo) and additional information (roads, mountains, lakes) is fairly limited but the map view in Google Maps shows all of Japan with excellent detail. So here's my attempt at integrating those two services by putting a transparent Google Map over the Google Earth view. Generating the links to Google Maps was fairly straightforward, but getting the alignment right was quite a challenge.

To try it out, just point Google Earth to somewhere in Japan and open the attached KMZ file. You can go somewhere else as well, but you'll get error messages if an area is not available at the required zoom level.

I just signed on here and this is my first post, so I apologize if this should go into another forum or if it has been discussed before.

Cheers,
Bernhard

P.S.: By the way, has anyone noticed how the name of Mt. Fuji changes almost daily? Today it's "Huzi San"